The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1887-02-10
Praise OF the South.
New Orleans TiIneS-DemOcrat

New orleans 1llltS-l)clnOCraG.
A few weeks after the Harper party
started its exploring tour of the South,
the New York Times announced that
it also would send a correspondent
into this section to investigate its con-
dtion and find whether the reports of
extraordinary development were genu-
inc or not.
The Times correspondent has got
no further South than Chattanooga,
but he sends back the most fattering
reports of progress, fully approving
everything favorable that has been
said on this subject. p, 7. ~
The Times says:
The letters from our correspondent
from Virginia and Tennessee show,
kind and degree of progress in the
South such as is now going on no.
where else in the United States and
probably nowhere else in the world,
and this because nowhere else are the
conditions SO favorable. The only
movement in this country that can be
compared to it is the one that took
place from 1890 to 1850 in what are
the Central and we're then the Western
States. The Southern movement diff
fers from that one in that it is far
more varied, including not only agri-
culture, though this is not by any
means absent, but great numbers and
kinds of manufactures and mining 1t
differs also in that a new country has
not to be settled and wrested from the
wilderness, but there is a solid basis of
organization, social, political and COM
mercial, on which to build Again,
the resources and the methods of those
engaged in the Southern movement
are of far higher and more efficient
sort than those of half a century since.
There is a vast accumulation of availa-
bic capital ready for actual invest
ment. A banking system as nearly
perfect as the world has ever seen is
ready to facilitate all legitimate enter
prise. The currency, whatever NAV
be its future, is safe and uniform; and
cannot be vitiated or endangered by the
adventures of spectators, financial IA
natiCs or swindlers, as that of the last
generation could be and often was
Communication of all sorts, for pas
sengers and freight, and for exchanges, !:
rapid, extensive, safe, sure and con.
stantly growing cheaper. The one thing
common to both movements is the
American spirit Of energy, self-rehance
and indomitable courage 1t is mo-
too much to say that enormous as was
the advantage to the country from the
Western movement, that made pos
sible in the South fairly ranks with it
and involved even greater future.
No one could have said more thar
this. The Times declaration that
the progress now going on nowhere
else in the Union, or IN the world
because nowhere else are the conditions
as favorable, is aSstrong presentation
of the case as any Southern paper
could make. The Times even places
the present industrial movement above
that which took place in the West Just
previous to the war, and which raised
that section to its present condition Of
wealth and prosperity, since the South
ern progress, points out, is not con-
fined to agriculture alone, but develops
the mineral wealth and manufactures
as we'll. If the Times is to be credited
and there is no reason to believe
that it says what it does from any
prejudice in favor of this section-the
present development of the South will
leave it, as soon as completed, in a
degree of prosperity and wealth in ad-
vance of the great West.
And thus the good work goes on.
Not correspondent, not a writer
comes here who does not send home
some fattering report. No longer can
the North complain Of ignorance of
nuE resources, since all its papers sing
in the loudest tones the praises of the